It's June in Mokhotlong.  The temperature has definitely begun it's downward trek into winter.  Pretty much every morning I have no psyche myself up to make that startling leap out of my warm covers with hot water bottle to the bracing air and cold floor.  This is followed by a quick dance across the cold floor to put on my hiking boots and jacket.  Yes, before I even get out of my pajamas, I'm into my boots.

The walks to school are as good of a wake up as the instant coffee here(I suspect the spoonfuls of sugar I add to make it bearable account for most of its short-lived invigoration).  Being amidst the mountains, I don't get to see the sun itself until well after I arrive at school, usually when classes are starting.  We have yet to get any snow here, but any shady rock is covered in ice for much of the day.

While Wisconsin had (imho) a rather disappointing election, the national elections were held in Lesotho this past month.  In place of TV ads or debates, it seemed to me the sole medium of political advertisement and support building was large groups of people packed into the back of open trucks(usually something massive, not unlike a deuce-and-a-half) or buses, carrying their party's flag and driving around singing and screaming their heads off.  Not sure if it is effective and was at times a little obnoxious, but I do prefer this method to the mud-slinging political ads in the States.  Anyhow, after about a month of this, the elections were held on May 26th.  It took another 4 days until the votes were all counted, and even then we did not find out who the new government would consist of.  Lesotho has a parliamentary system, with a certain majority of the MPs being necessary to create a government, but none of the 3-4 major parties had enough seats to do so.  So, it took a bunch of political deal brokering, but yesterday 3 of the parties announced they were forming a coalition to get the majority.  They announced that the new Prime Minister will be Tom Thabang, leader of the ABC(All Basotho Convention) though we still don't know if the government itself will be a coalition government or what.  It was all very interesting to an American with a very poor grasp of such political systems.  The good news is that, unlike the elections in 1997, everything has gone down with no major incidents of violence.  Peace Corps was justifiably concerned about this possibility, and so, kept us on alert until it was clear that things would proceed without trouble.

In other news, the school term has come to an end.  The last 3 weeks were taken up by a 'revision' week and two weeks of tests.  I was surprised to find that lots of sports and little studying happens during revision week.  That that does occur appears to me to be rather misguided.  The students spend most of their time memorizing questions from previous tests instead of working problems, making flash cards, etc.  Learning how to study is an essential skill and, after seeing this, I think I will put some serious effort into teaching my students HOW to learn.  Not surprisingly, the end of term tests were very disappointing for all but a handful of my students.  However, now I know better what the impediments to their learning and my teaching are, so hopefully I can tackle things next term with a more effective approach and attitude!

Well, that's all on my mind for now.  Hopefully with school out, I will find myself less lazy about updating this blog and will have some more adventures about Lesotho and Southern Africa to report on!